This week's blog entry is written by Seattle University freshman outside hitter Sarah Jaeckel of Littleton, Colo.
This past weekend, our team traveled to San Jose, Calif., to compete against San Jose State, Cal State Bakersfield, and Cal State Northridge. The trip started off with a lot of positive energy. Even though we had just come off a tough loss against Oregon, we fought hard in that match and proved to ourselves how successful we could be. It was really exciting for me to play a ranked team like Oregon, and great to see our team play hard and execute well. However, we were all focused on the weekend's upcoming matches.
We came out Friday morning against CSU Northridge a little slow, but we were determined for a win and knew that losing was not an option. So, we got our act together and beat them in five. Our second match that day was against CSU Bakersfield and we executed right off the bat. We beat them in three because everyone was playing strong and we played together as a team really well. Winning these two felt awesome and the hard work we put in everyday was starting to pay off.
Saturday morning, we played San Jose State and we lost this match in five. While this was a disappointing loss, we played hard and did some good things throughout the match that we can keep building on. The weekend as a whole was exciting, and I got to see some family and friends from California when they came to support us, which was really fun for me!
Our team's improvement over the past couple of weeks has been phenomenal, and I know it will only get better from here. Wednesday night is our next match and we are lining up against the Oregon State Beavers. It will be a tough match but with the work we've been doing over the past couple of weeks, hopefully we will be able to pull off another Redhawk victory!